Recriminations
by chiroho
Summary: Post Twilight [yes, I'm sorry]. Gibbs doesn't know as much as everyone thinks. Character death. Implied TATE. Complete.


**Title:** Recriminations  
**Author:** chiroho  
**Disclaimer:** All the characters belong to their respective creators, including Donald P. Bellisario, CBS Broadcasting Inc, and Paramount Pictures.  
**Setting:** Post "Twilight", spoilers for that episode.  
**Summary:** Gibbs doesn't know as much as everyone thinks he does. Character death.  
**Pairing:** implied Tony/Kate  
**A/N: **I know it's another Twilight story and for that I'm sorry, but this just came to me and I needed to get it out. Many thanks to Sue Corkill for the beta.

* * *

I'm not omniscient, no matter how much everyone thinks I am. Nor do I have special sources of information, except for the ones built up over twenty years of working at NCIS and having a lot of people owe me favours. In fact I'm not really that much better informed than anyone that works for me. I just have a knack for putting together pieces to make a whole. That - and very good hearing - coupled with the ability to move very quietly.

Unfortunately, none of that helped me at all when it came to Kate's death, or what followed afterwards. Somehow I'd never understood that Kate was the true target, despite the fact that Ari had dangled it right in front of me the whole time. I'd just assumed he wanted to kill me, when in fact what he'd really wanted all along was to hurt me, and the best way of doing that was by killing one of my team. Kate was the perfect choice, because I cared for her the way any father would care for his only daughter.

That's not to say that I don't care about DiNozzo or McGee, though they'd never hear me say it. But boys are always tougher, less fragile. I know it's a stereotype, one for which Kate would have kicked my ass from here to kingdom come had she ever known I'd even thought it, but it's true all the same. Girls are special. Girls you love, and hold, and cherish. They make you feel warm and fuzzy in the way that boys don't simply because they're boys. There was never anything sexual between us, because that's not how fathers think of their daughters. Any sexual tension and bickering was between Kate and Tony – though I know it was nothing more than that. Perhaps there might have been the possibility of more had they ever had the chance, but that was not to be - and it wasn't the problem. The problem was me.

After Kate died, we all retreated into our shells. I found comfort in fixating on that bastard, a fixation greater even than when Tony accused me of being Captain Ahab. It was the only thing that kept me going for those first few weeks. Abby spent her time isolating every single piece of evidence from every conceivable angle. McGee had never lost a team mate before and struggled with the emotions that so obviously threatened to overwhelm him. So he spent his time with Abby, as much to help her with the evidence as to keep away from me. Ducky was Ducky. While he'd been as fond of Kate as everyone else, his lifelong experiences with the dead kept him on solid ground. And Tony? In some ways he seemed to cope better than any of us. He was subdued, but he was still Tony. He'd been around the block before, lost friends in the line of duty. I know he was close to Kate, but I just figured that he'd processed things and moved on. That's where my fixation blinded me to what was really happening.

* * *

I think McGee tried to tell me what was happening, in his own embarrassed way. He was the one who had borne the brunt of Tony's teasing – something that had now stopped completely. He was the one who understood that the Tony I saw was just an illusion, hiding a soul that no longer seemed to have a reason to live. He was the one who reached out and was spurned by the man who looked normal during the day, yet cried all night. I was the one who growled and told him to get back to work, that Tony was fine. I was the one who missed the signs.

It started off innocently enough. Tony had never been a slow driver, but after Kate's death he got faster and faster, playing games with physics and getting several warnings from local LEOs, despite the government plates and the NCIS identification. When Kate had profiled Ari for me, she'd said that he needed to take chances just to feel alive. Tony had become like that. Internally he was dead and the only time he felt a spark was when he came close to death himself.

While I might be excused for not noticing the driving, what was absolutely unforgivable was when I didn't notice that Tony started taking chances during investigations. He'd enter a house without waiting for backup. He'd rush a suspect, heedless of being exposed to possible gunfire. He'd return fire from an exposed position, rather than seeking cover. The problem was that I didn't notice, thanks mostly to how good Tony is at what he does. While he might pretend something else, there is very little that gets past him. You can't succeed as a cop for nearly ten years without that, and in my rage and anger I failed to notice that Tony was surviving by sheer dumb luck. Then came the day that shocked me back to reality and may prove the end of my career.

We'd cornered some suspected terrorists near an abandoned farm in northern Virginia and were slowly closing in on their position. Unknown to us, they had a lot more firepower available than we'd imagined, and were actually waiting for us to move in before taking us all out. As we approached, thinking things would be fairly routine, they opened fire with an M60, ripping apart anything that wasn't hard cover. I returned fire in a haphazard manner while McGee called for backup. Tony, however, simply charged forward, totally exposing himself as he did so. He somehow managed to take down the terrorist with the machine gun, but was virtually cut in half in the process.

With the heavy firepower out of the way subduing the rest of the terrorists was fairly easy, especially when the Virginia state troopers arrived on the scene, but by the time I got back to Tony's side his life was hanging by a thread. I almost broke down and wept on seeing him like that. I've seen too many Marines injured in combat and knew full well that there was no way he was going to live. I knelt down beside him and grabbed his hand in mine, the full impact of my mistake slamming into me like the bullets that had hit Tony. His eyes slowly turned to look at me.

"Sorry, boss. I screwed up."

"No Tony. I was the one who screwed up."

"Wanted to go in a blaze of glory. Make the end worthwhile."

Another bullet of guilt thudded into me as Tony's comment on Kate's death being meaningless immediately sprang to mind.

"You're not going to die, DiNozzo."

He tried to laugh, but almost immediately started coughing up blood instead. "I'm already dead, boss. Have been ever since Kate died. No point in going on."

How could I not have noticed this? How could I have been so self consumed for weeks that I didn't see Tony self-destructing in front of me? How can I even call myself a leader any more?

"Not your fault, boss. Don't blame yourself."

Did he know me so well that he could read my mind? Of course he did. He tried to snap me out of this the last time, but as usual I'd rejected him. Now he was paying the price.

"I can hear Kate calling me, boss. Have to catch her before I lose her again."

And then he died. The sorrow that had haunted his eyes for the past couple of months briefly changed to hope, before they lost their lustre completely.

My folly had not only seen the loss of one agent, it had now seen the loss of two.

**END**

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